COMPONENT 1 – NARRTIVE FOR FINAL PIECE

General notes form taking to my subject

My primary school was called St Andrews Major, on the common in Dinas Powys. It has not really
changed at all. It just, feels like a long time ago. It was really happy experience for me. One friend in
particular, she is like a sister to me. We go back to when I was about 8 years old and we were there
together. I remember falling over in the playground, cutting my knees. Christmas parties. Eating
sandwiches and jelly. Playing hockey, playing rounders. I have a million memories and that place has
barely changed at all. The in dinas means a lot to me. Getting drunk there, sitting outside in the
summer with people and just talking rubbish and laughing. Christmas eves, new year’s eves, it was
the pub we always seemed to go to the most.

I used to play tennis and walk along the common in Dinas, I remember walking to friend’s houses,
being on my bike with my sister. I remember ties when it snowed and playing outside in the snow.
My grandparents lived down the street. It is mainly the garden of that house which is poignant for
me there. I think of my grandparents in the garden, doing bonfires with them. My grandfather
wheeling me around in the wheelbarrow. The house has changed so much but its still so important
to me. I lost my grandparents when I was 12 and 14. I remember going to stay with them. Walking
down there for tea. I remember my grandmother making me boiled eggs with toast soldiers. We
used to have sleepovers, she used to make summer dresses for me to go to school and welsh
costumes for Saint David’s Day. I was really close to them. It was very special.

I lived in this house for 20 years of my life. It has not changed massively. I have got a million
memories there from learning how to ride my bike, making dens in the garden, having birthday
parties, playing hide and seek in the garden. We had a swing at the top of the garden, I used to sit up
there for hours and with my sister just talking, about friends and school. A million memories.
Learning to drive and crashing my mother’s car into our gate post and ruining the gate post. It is one
of the most important places in my life

My twin sister, she is 7 minutes older than me. She has always been there. She is one of the most
special people in my life and she always will be. WE came into all of this together and we are
extremely close. She is always been in my life; I have never been without her really for a single
moment since the single moment that I was born and that is a very special thing to be able to say. I
feel extremely lucky. We have got such a connection. We have got the same sense of humour; we
have got the same values. Its like being with someone but being on your own. Im completely myself
with her. She is like an extension of me. We do not live in each other’s pockets; we have always had
our own identity and that is important. We are different in lots of ways; she is often a stronger
person if things start to go wrong. Maybe because of those 7 minutes, I do not know. Im more
sensitive. Im certainly bossier than her, I remember bossing her around a lot.

We have got a lot of memories of holidays we have had. Our wedding days. Its one of the most
special relationships you could have in your life. I feel so lucky to have a second half. But yet she
does not rob me of my identity, and I do not rob her or hers. If she is been hurt of upset, I have felt
that very deeply for her, almost as deeply as I would feel for myself. She is just a wonderful person.
We are two separate people that share an unbreakable bond.

A friend of mine, I have known her since we were 8 years old. Her parents died in the same week.
Her sister had been killed in a car accident 4 years prior. We were only 25. She was effectively
orphaned at that time. That was a very traumatic time, she was completely lost. My sister and I lived
with her at the time and it were just very painful. She can laugh ay life now, despite was she has
been through in the past. She is a very strong person. It was an extremely painful time. I found
myself feeling very panicked, it was a delayed reaction to the trauma I had been through at the time.
I felt very vulnerable. But we have come through it, she is come through it.

My children, they are so familiar to me. I can vividly remember they day they were both born. I can
remember what I had to eat for lunch the day after they were born. I remember the first time I held
them, the first time I looked at them, the first thing I said to them. Everything in my life has been
referenced to having my kids, life before and after my kids. That is been the biggest thing in my life
to have them. I always wanted them.

I have got a million memories of them, when they were naughty, when they were good. When they
made me laugh? Taking them to school. School plays. Times when they were hurt when they had
fallen down. Lots of memories of friends they have had, things they have done. Going horse riding,
going swimming with them, going walking. Now they are growing up into young adults, I am able to
get to know my kids at a different stage in their lives, starting to feel like an equal rather that their
mother, even though I will always be their mother. We can sit and talk. It is very poignant. I have
never loved anybody with the intensity that I have loved them.

I remember when I found out I was pregnant the first time, it was a Friday, George Harrison had just
died. I thought I might have been pregnant and then I was not sure on the Saturday and then on the
Sunday I felt really ill. I did a pregnancy test and I was pregnant. It was just lovely but strange. I was
nervous to protect this little thing that was growing inside of me that I wanted so badly. Having kids
is something I always wanted. Having two girls, they can sympathise and empathise with each other.
They are the most important people in my life and always will be.

My parents. They have been and continue to be great influences in my life, how to be a good parent,
how to show support in many ways, emotionally, financially, and practically. They have taught me
important values in my life, to respect and care for others. Also, the importance of caring about
myself.

Millions of memories from being tiny and going to school, making Christmas decorations, and
decorating the Christmas tree. Having arguments when I was a teenager and came home drunk.
Crashing my mother’s car. I remember my wedding day with them. Them taking me to Paris when I
was 21. I cannot go through 20 years of memories. They have taught me how to be a good parent.
When it comes to it, there are memories of big events they have always been constant. They have
always been rock solid and there has never been a time when I have doubted them. They supported
me and my sibling. I have seen them grow from idle age people into old people. I do not see them as
old as they are, they seem forever young to me. When I see them now, I find it hard because they
have always been so constant in my life. Despite the years that have gone by them still seem the
same to me in my mind. But when I look at them now, I see older people. When I think of them, they
do feel forever young. But it is just difficult now.

When I think of home and a happy place, I think of the house. I inst6antly feel a connection there. It
has always been in our family. I instantly felt it was ours. My kids were children there and they grew
up there. I remember when It snowed, I remember Christmases there and the way the snow looked.
We lived there for 7 years. And we can still go back, it feels familiar but so different.

I felt desolate when we had to move, I did not want to leave, I felt it had been taken away from me
before it should have been. Circumstances dictated that we had to move, so we had to leave. We did
not have a choice. I like to sit in the garden and think about days gone by. It does not feel like my
house anymore, but it still feels like a place that I can call home.

Well I first met him in December 1997 at a work Christmas party, we just met out at the party and
talked and then we went out for a drink in January 1998. Well I just thought he was very nice and
very kind, I knew that we seemed to get along very well very quickly. I did not meet his parents for
like 4 months. I went for Sunday lunch with her family, there were a lot people and if let it be quite
scary, but they were every nice and very welcoming. I started to go round there more and spent
more time with his family and became more involved with his family. he came round to my parents’
house for Sunday lunch and that was the first time they met him.

He moved in with me after 8 months, the house he was renting was sold so he had to move out so
out the time I said move in with me. He moved in it was nice. We got along well, we seemed
comfortable together. I was happy that he was there, and it felt comfortable and right. We sold our
house in Barry in mid-1999, we rented a house in Cowbridge, whilst we were renting, we then
bought a house together. We moved into this house in early 2000, it was exciting. We had bought a
house together; I had never bought a house with anyone else before other than my sister.

We went on holiday in September 2000 to Edinburgh, and he proposed outside the RA club house
and then we got married on April 28 th, 2001. We got married at funmon castle which was owned by
a family friend. We had our first child in 2002.

I have memories of sitting in his parents house, in the garden with my kids and with my family. We
had birthday parties there and we used to sit outside in the garden and have lunch together, with his
parents and his sister and our kids